Posted
by
timothyon Saturday March 13, 2010 @01:50AM
from the but-maybe-only-at-the-end dept.

CuteSteveJobs writes "Apple has been dealt a severe blow having been told that it no longer has a monopoly on the letter 'i' for product naming. IP Australia, the government body that oversees trademark applications, rejected Apple's complaint against a company selling 'DOPi' laptop bags. Last year Australian computer company Macpro Computers claimed that after 26 years of flying its own Macpro brand that Apple was 'trying to burn us out' with legal fees. This was after Apple released its own Macpro line 3½ years ago. Apple lost that complaint, but is appealing. Last year Apple went after supermarket Woolworths complaining their new logo which featured a 'W' fashioned into the shape of an apple. (Woolworths sells real apples.)"

The local grocery store in Silicon Valley has four organic apples in a hermetically sealed plastic box with a sticker on top to win a real skateboard [wikipedia.org] for $3 USD. This is something that Steve Jobs would've come up with, although the skateboard would've been Steve Wozniak's idea.

I don't know about you, but if I saw a product which was the palindrome of a completely different sort of product, I wouldn't be able to tell the difference between the real one and the other. Obviously this "DOPi" product exists only to fool the honest consumer merely looking to save a few bucks on a Genuine Apple® iPod(tm). Imagine the poor saps' surprise when their newly purchased laptop bag refuses to play music!

In other news, Wal*Mart are suing Pixar for blatantly ripping their name off with the title of the film Wall-E; and they have scores of confused cinema-goers willing to testify in their favour. In partnership with the City of Berlin, Pink Floyd have indicated that they will launch a similar lawsuit, seeking damages for The Berlin Wall and the two-part song "Another Brick In The Wall", respectively. No response yet from Humpty Dumpty's legal team.

Frank Herbert, the author of "Dune" wrote a couple of novels set in a universe where lawyers who chose to fight a case literally had to fight it...and die if they lost. "Whipping Star" was one of them.

I think he was onto something. I, for one, would pay big money to see lawyers die.

In a severe blow to food naming conventions Mother Nature has lost her bid to retain the name "Apple" for the fruit of the same name. In a compromise Apple is allowing Mother Nature to have their unused trademark iSlate for all apple type fruits. This is seen as a victory for the US and Mom's iSlate pie!